At the start of my second year here at CSUSM, I was living alone in an apartment complex near campus. I had just begun to get used to cooking for myself and was having trouble finding a dessert recipe that did not require a lot of ingredients and also did not take up a lot of time.

Since the holidays were coming up, I was always craving cookies and decided to experiment with different cookie recipes to see which one would be the best dessert after a long day of attending classes. That is when I discovered this recipe for pumpkin cookies. If you are wanting a quick and minimum ingredient fall dessert, this is the recipe for you!

Ingredients:

For this recipe, you must have one package of yellow cake mix. You are also welcome to make the cake mix from scratch, but it will require additional ingredients and will have a longer prep time as well. You must acquire two teaspoons worth of pumpkin pie spice, ¼ cup of softened butter, ½ cup raisins (if desired), a dash of cinnamon and one cup of canned pumpkin.

Be careful when selecting the canned pumpkin and not mistake it for pumpkin pie mix because it’s a simple mistake. You also need around 1 cup of Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy vanilla ready-to-spread frosting. Additionally, for reference, this recipe makes around 24 cookies.

Steps:

First, you will want to preheat your oven to 375℉ and locate a cookie sheet as well as a large mixing bowl. Next, you will set the cookie sheet aside and use the large bowl to mix your dry ingredients together. This would include the dry yellow cake mix and the pumpkin pie spice, then mix with a whisk or substitute it with a fork if needed.

Once you have combined these two ingredients, you will then gradually mix in the canned pumpkin and softened butter until the mixture is blended. After this step, you may add the raisins if you choose to include them.

On the cookie sheet, you will drop a spoonful of dough and spread each cluster a couple inches apart from each other so that they do not overlap as they expand in the oven. Then you will set a timer for 11 to 12 minutes, or until the dough has turned a golden brown color.

Finally, after the timer goes off you may set the cookie sheet on a wire rack or a trivet if available. Once the cookies have cooled down (usually 20 minutes), you may frost with frosting and top with a sprinkle of cinnamon and voila!

Enjoy!